Diamond In The Rough: Hartley Cycles Mini-Tourer

Bespoked 2017 is very nearly upon us, and one builder who will always bring something exquisitely well-crafted to the table is the queen of asymmetry: Caren Hartley of London’s Hartley Cycles. Here’s her own Mini-Tourer which she prepared earlier.

While this tough beauty is small in stature, it’s big on details, and while it may look like something you’d expect to see in the window of a store in Hatton Garden, it’s built to traverse the most adverse of terrains.

This is Caren’s own adventurer, which she created in collaboration with Columbus for the ‘New Craft’ exhibition, part of La Triennale, in Milan last year. Ergo, it is constructed from Columbus tubes; Spirit for the front triangle and XCR for the rear.

The details on this frame make Caren’s traditional career as a jeweler abundantly clear, from the brazed polygonal shapes on the top tube to the bespoke Hartley Cycles Contour Crown on the fork, crafted from hand-manipulated stainless steel sheet.

Columbus also provided their brand new prototype disc blades for the forks, manufactured to ably cope with the extra forces applied by disc brakes — a modern answer to the current market trend.

To cater for Caren’s height, the frame is designed around 26″ wheels, with clearances for the 48mm Compass McClure Pass tyres shown, or extra tread if the terrain demands. For functionality and reliability, she selected SRAM‘s NX groupset and Jones‘ Loop H-Bars.

We’ll have to wait for the weekend to see what Caren’s built for the show, but you can be sure it will dazzle. You can, however, glimpse her new production series that she’s been working on with Talbot Frameworks by heading to the Isen Workshop Instagram feed.